South Shore communities cracking down on donation bins

Quincy, Hingham, Norwell and Rockland are all considering or have recently passed ordinances to regulate the use of the bins. A proposed ordinance in Quincy would also require organizations to state if the donation is for charity.

By Neal Simpson

The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, MA

By Neal Simpson

Posted Jul. 21, 2012 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jul 21, 2012 at 9:13 PM

By Neal Simpson

Posted Jul. 21, 2012 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jul 21, 2012 at 9:13 PM

QUINCY

» Social News

Early Thursday morning, Nancy Carr stepped out of her car with a bag of used clothes and turned to a row of seven donation bins in the parking lot of the Stop & Shop grocery store on Newport Avenue.

“I come here a lot,” the Milton resident said as she tossed a bag in a bin that claimed to provide money for a cancer organization. “This is convenient.”

Collecting used clothing and other goods – once the sole purview of groups like the Salvation Army and Goodwill – has become a highly competitive $1 billion a year industry, resulting in an explosion in the number of donation bins crowding parking lots and street corners.

Now, city and town officials are searching for ways to regulate the bins and to help residents figure out which groups deserve their goods.

There are no state laws that regulate who can put out a donation bin and no requirement to say whether donations are for profit, recycling or charity.

Quincy, Hingham, Norwell and Rockland are considering or have recently passed ordinances to regulate the use of the bins. A proposed ordinance in Quincy would also require organizations to state if the donation is for charity.

“The fact that most communities don’t do any type of oversight on these I’m surprised about,” said Kirk Shilts, chairman of Hingham’s health board.

New England is a particularly lucrative spot for profit-making recyclers because the quality of donated goods is higher than elsewhere in the country, said Capt. Leo Lloyd, who oversees the Salvation Army’s donation centers in communities south of Boston.He said he has seen the number of organizations that use donation bins in Brockton more than triple in the last decade, from around seven to nearly 30.

“It’s highly, highly competitive,” Lloyd said. “We have to work like we never have before to do what we do.”

Donation bins from competing organizations can now be found grouped by the half dozen in parking lots or on opposite street corners in many South Shore communities.

Along a 31/2-mile stretch of Route 53 in Hanover, a Patriot Ledger editor counted 16 clothing and book donation bins at strip mall and office building parking lots. That number did not include donation bins hidden behind a fence at the Salvation Army store on Route 53.

In Quincy, City Councilor Kevin Coughlin drafted an ordinance this spring that would require organizations to pay a fee and get a license from city hall before placing a donation bin anywhere in the city.

The ordinance, which has been approved by the council and is awaiting the mayor’s signature, would also require each bin to include the name and contact information for the organization that placed it, as well as an explanation of how the collected items would be used and the proceeds spent.

Page 2 of 3 - “Not all of these entities that are out there proliferating donation bins are as altruistic as we may think they are,” he said.

In Rockland, voters approved a measure this spring that limits where bins can be placed and requires organizations that use them to get a license from town hall. Norwell and Hingham are considering similar measures.

Officials in the communities say the bins, which sometimes wind up on public sidewalks or close to a neighbor’s property line, are a public safety hazard, a nuisance and an eyesore.

Coughlin, the Quincy councilor, said he began looking into the issue after residents in the Montclaire neighborhood complained about the “blight” of donation bins there.

“There would be bags and bags piled around the donations bins and sometimes people were dropping off things that were probably not appropriate,” he said.

In Hingham, a proposed health regulation would require all donation bins to be painted a standardized blue color and display the name and phone number of the company that operates it. But Shilts, chairman of the town’s board of health, said he has already heard from some residents who would rather the board ban the bins .

“They just think the things are damn ugly, and they want to get rid of them,” he said.

Red Cross of Eastern Mass. – All bins operated by a third-party contractor based in Pembroke. The Red Cross gets 3 cents for every pound donated, or just under $100,000 a year, according to a spokesman.

Planet Aid– Donated clothes and shoes are bundled and sold to companies that sell it to domestic retailers or ship it abroad. Operates its recycling operation and donates proceeds for development work abroad.

Got Books – For-profit company that sells the books it collects at bookstores operated by an affiliated company. Organizations that allow the bins to be placed on their property are paid a fee every time they are filled, according to the organization’s website.

Goodwill - Only places drop-off bins at municipal transfer stations. Most donated goods are sold at Goodwill stores, which are staffed in part by people in the organization’s work-training programs.

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Go Green for the Cause – Receives payments from a recycling company that maintains its bins and collects goods left there, according to its website. Claims to donate money to organizations that help children with various needs.

Salvation Army - Maintains its own bins. Clothing and goods collected are either bundled and sold to other companies in bulk or distributed at local Salvation Army stores.